Hamas studies US 'bridge' proposal for truce as Israel escalates return to war

CAIRO/DUBAI (Reuters) - Hamas said on Friday it was reviewing a U.S. proposal to restore the Gaza ceasefire as Israel intensified a military onslaught to press the Palestinian militant group to free remaining Israeli hostages.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff's "bridge" plan, presented last week, aims to extend the ceasefire into April, beyond the holidays of Ramadan and Passover, to allow time for negotiations on a permanent cessation of hostilities.

Three days after Israel effectively abandoned the two-month-old truce, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military was intensifying its air, land and sea strikes and would move civilians to the southern part of Gaza.

Katz said Israel would continue its campaign until Hamas released more hostages and was totally defeated. Israeli airstrikes inflicted serious damage on Hamas this week, killing its Gaza government chief and other top officials.

But Palestinian and Israeli sources say Hamas has shown it can absorb major losses and still fight and govern.

Hamas said it was still debating Witkoff's proposal and other ideas, with the goal of reaching a deal on prisoner releases, ending the war and securing a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Egypt also put forward a bridging proposal, but Hamas had yet to respond. The official declined to provide details of the plan, which he said was under consideration.

Two Egyptian security sources said Egypt had suggested setting a timeline for the release of the remaining hostages alongside a deadline for a full Israeli pullout from Gaza with U.S. guarantees.

The sources said the U.S. had signalled initial approval while Hamas' and Israel's responses were expected later on Friday.

A first phase of the truce ended at the start of this month, but Israel and Hamas could not agree on terms for launching the second phase. Hamas delayed further hostage releases and Israeli military action then resumed.

After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives under Israel's new, all-out air and ground campaign, accompanied by another halt to aid deliveries.

Katz said the longer Hamas refused to free remaining hostages, the more territory it would lose. Of the more than 250 people originally seized in Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, 59 remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are thought to be alive.

US BLAMES HAMAS FOR RESUMPTION OF ISRAELI ONSLAUGHT

Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the deadliest days of the 17-month-old war, and there has been scant let-up since.

On Friday, six children were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a house in the Tuffah district of Gaza City in the enclave's north, while two people were killed by tank fire in Abassan near Khan Younis in the south, according to Palestinian medics.

Hours later, the Israeli military said it had intercepted two projectiles from northern Gaza after alerts were activated in the Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Hamas' armed wing claimed the attack, saying it was responding to Israeli "massacres against civilians" in Gaza.

The Israeli military also said it had killed the head of Hamas military intelligence in southern Gaza on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The United States told the U.N. Security Council that Hamas was to blame for the deaths since hostilities resumed.

"Hamas bears full responsibility for the ongoing war in Gaza and for the resumption of hostilities. Every death would have been avoided had Hamas accepted the bridge proposal that the United States offered last Wednesday," acting U.S. ambassador Dorothy Shea told the council.

The United Nations' Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, one of the largest providers of food aid in Gaza, said it only had enough flour to distribute for the next six days.

"We can stretch that by giving people less, but we are talking days, not weeks," UNRWA official Sam Rose told reporters in Geneva by video link from Gaza.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza was once again alarming, UNRWA said.

"Six of 25 bakeries that the World Food Programme were supporting had to close down," Rose added.

"This is the longest period since the start of conflict in October 2023 that no supplies whatsoever have entered Gaza. The progress we made as an aid system over the last six weeks of the ceasefire is being reversed."

Israel's blockade has pushed up prices of fuel and essential foods, forcing many to ration their meals.

The war began after Hamas militants attacked Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing conflict, according to Gaza's health authorities, with much of the densely populated territory reduced to rubble.

(Reporting by Jana Choukeir in Dubai and Nidal al Mughrabi in Cairo; additional reporting by Ahmed Shalaby in Cairo, Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva, and Michelle Nichols; editing by Mark Heinrich, Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman)